


Janiel

by centreoftheselights



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Tablet, Angels, Episode: s08e17 Goodbye Stranger, Gen, Heaven's Civil War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-29
Updated: 2013-03-29
Packaged: 2017-12-22 20:29:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/917700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/centreoftheselights/pseuds/centreoftheselights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Naomi sends the angels looking for Castiel. One of them gets lucky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Janiel

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [on Tumblr](http://centrumlumina.tumblr.com/post/46618584269/dean-and-castiel-and-some-five-dollar-foot-longs-i).
> 
> Inspired by the angel at the end of Goodbye Stranger, and the following angel lore:
> 
> Janiel is an Angel who can help on Tuesdays or can help anyone born on this day. This Angel can be asked for help to protect us in this violent world. The Angel will especially help those who are attacked for their free will and beliefs in this world.

Janiel had never questioned her orders before the Apocalypse began. Of course, it had been easy in those days, when the orders were to wait and do nothing, and every angel who left Heaven was sure to return safely. But even when the battalions had begun to fall, when her brothers and sisters had fallen to a distant enemy, she had trusted that their path was the only way forwards.

When the Winchesters proved her wrong in that, she stopped being so certain.

She was not timid about her doubts, and she was lucky to attract the right kind of attention. She never spoke to Castiel directly of course, only his lieutenant, Rachel - but she followed his command nonetheless. She believed that he knew a better way forward, that they could choose their own paths to the future.

She became a double agent, a spy in Raphael’s ranks. Lying to her fellow soldiers did not come naturally to her; each moment felt like betrayal. She proved to be excellent at it.

She was away on Raphael’s orders when Castiel reigned down his wrath upon Heaven. There were few survivors - all of them her fellow supporters, but not all of Castiel’s loyal were among them. Only the acquiescent lived; those who had tried to plead for their siblings had been struck down. Janiel wondered, if she had been there, what she would have done.

Heaven had been decimated. Fledglings outnumbered warriors, and they were vulnerable to attack. Without clear leadership, the survivors from every faction seemed lost.

Naomi had been Janiel’s garrison commander. She had never known which side her superior’s loyalties lay - there were many false agents in the second war, and only secrecy had ensured their survival. But when they returned to that scattered aftermath and the corpses of their kin, Naomi had turned to her and said: “We can rebuild. We can still make this right.”

Janiel had let herself be blind to what Naomi was doing. To the near-fledglings sent out untrained, to the “therapy” for those who had survived. She had wanted to believe that they were still building a better world, one in which they could be free.

Then Naomi sent her to find Castiel. He was hidden to her senses, but she knew there was more than one way to look, and she flew between population centres, knowing that the best way to disappear was in plain sight. She found him in a bus station, and she could not believe what she saw.

A tablet. The Word of their Father, on the subject of themselves. With that kind of power, an angel could do whatever they wished with their siblings. She would not trust Naomi with that knowledge, or even herself.

Yet Castiel did nothing.

The capacity for unwavering faith was one she should have lost long ago, yet she still hoped for a better future, and she still believed in the world Castiel’s words had painted for her all those years ago.

So when Naomi summoned her to return with an unspoken question in the air, she hesitated for just one moment, and then -

Shook her head.


End file.
